Zooming in on Calcium-rich Supernova SN 2019ehk in Spiral Galaxy Messier 100

Zooming in on Calcium-rich Supernova SN 2019ehk in Spiral Galaxy Messier 100

Zooming in on the calcium-rich supernova SN 2019ehk in the constellation of Coma Berenices.

Astronomers have for the first time used X-ray imaging to examine a calcium-rich supernova located 50 million light-years away. Their findings, published in the Astrophysical Journal, show that a calcium-rich supernova is a compact star that sheds an outer layer of gas during the final stages of its life; when the star explodes, its matter collides with the loose material in that outer shell, emitting bright X-rays; the overall explosion causes intensely hot temperatures and high pressure, driving a chemical reaction that produces calcium. A supernova is the largest explosion that humans have ever seen.

Half of all the calcium in the Universe—including the calcium in our teeth and bones—was created in stellar explosions called calcium-rich supernovae. These events are so rare that astrophysicists have struggled to find and subsequently study them.

“Calcium-rich supernovae are so few in number that we have never known what produced them,” said Dr. Wynn Jacobson-Galan, a researcher at Northwestern University.

“By observing what this star did in its final month before it reached its critical, tumultuous end, we peered into a place previously unexplored, opening new avenues of study within transient science.”

Dr. Jacobson-Galan and colleagues studied a calcium-rich supernova dubbed SN 2019ehk in Messier 100, a star-forming spiral galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices.

This stellar explosion was first spotted on April 29, 2019 by amateur astronomer Joel Shepherd.

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, Lick Observatory and the W. M. Keck Observatory immediately examined SN 2019ehk in optical wavelengths.

Swift also observed the event in X-rays and ultraviolet. The X-ray emission only lingered for five days before completely disappearing.

“Before this event, we had indirect information about what calcium-rich supernovae might or might not be. Now, we can confidently rule out several possibilities,” said Dr. Raffaella Margutti, also from Northwestern University.

Typical stars create small amounts of calcium slowly through burning helium throughout their lives. Calcium-rich supernovae produce massive amounts of calcium within seconds.

Credits:

A. M. Geller/Northwestern University/CTIO/SOAR/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler, J.-E. Ovaldsen, C. C. Thöne and C. Féron; A. Fujii and Z. Levay (STScI); C. Kilpatrick/University of California Santa Cruz/NASA-ESA Hubble Space Telescope 

Duration: 19 seconds

Release Date: Aug. 7, 2024

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